Going After the Money Ministries

Correction Appended: Nov. 19, 2007

On the website for their ministry based in Newark, Texas, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland commit to “teach Christians worldwide who they are in Christ Jesus and how to live a victorious life.” And they appear to be victorious in theirs, with books in 22 languages, a global crusade schedule and a TV show reaching millions. No less a luminary than presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is advertised to appear on the show for six days straight to discuss “character in the Bible.”

Huckabee might want to opt out. On Nov. 6 the Copelands got a saw-toothed, 42 point questionnaire inquiring into their own character from Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance. Grassley wanted to know how Kenneth Copeland–who as a church leader pays no taxes but is expected to plow revenue back into the public welfare–got a private plane and whether flights to Hawaii and Fiji qualified as business trips. Grassley sought credit card receipts and the numbers of the church’s offshore bank accounts.

Copeland wasn’t Grassley’s only pen pal. He also wrote to the Revs. Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer and Paula White, in total six televangelists who are part of an evangelical subculture known loosely as Prosperity gospel. “Recent news reports regarding the possible misuse of donations made to religious organizations” prompted the probe, Grassley wrote. The ministers’ responses are technically voluntary, but the Senator has asked for them in a month and has mused that the replies could lead to testimony under oath. If so, Grassley could end up wiping out what some consider a kleptocracy but what is certainly the public face of a popular theology.

Prosperity adherents believe the right thoughts and speech, along with giving to the church, will prompt divine repayment in this life, with a return as high as $100 on each dollar handed up. On a small scale, Prosperity’s positive thinking has sometimes energized the march of the poor into the middle class, but many Christians find it theologically and ethically perverse. Prosperity dominates American religious TV, and millions of adherents send millions of dollars to preachers they have never met. For Grassley, this might be fine if the ministers put all the money back into their mission work. But his now famous question about Meyer’s $23,000 commode suggests he questions the destination of her estimated $124 million annual take. He has asked for her real estate records, reminding her fellow Missourians of an extended duel she had with Jefferson County officials that resulted in her agreeing in 2005 to pay taxes on half of her $20 million headquarters.

Among Grassley’s questions to Dollar was one about a gift of $500,000 to Copeland. Dollar told TIME that he made a gift but said the sum was not that high. He and the Copelands claim to be tax-compliant. Hinn and Long did not respond by press time. White’s ministry says to the best of its knowledge it complies with all tax codes. Meyer posted a 2007 IRS letter confirming tax-exempt status.

The larger conservative Christian community has not been supportive. “Grassley has a shotgun, and lead is spraying all over the place, but I’m looking at the good that can be done,” says Marvin Olasky, editor of the evangelical weekly World. J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, where some of the six advertise, hopes all can prove their innocence, but he adds, “If God wants to use a Senator to help the American church clean up its act, then I say bring on the Reformation.”

But should Grassley play the role of Martin Luther? Some see Grassley’s acts as a religious vendetta, launched by a white-bread Evangelical who doesn’t get the group’s view of rich pastors as a sign of divine grace. Grassley has hinted that his purpose may be to revamp tax laws to keep up with rapacious preachers. Remarks Charles Haynes, senior scholar with the First Amendment Center: “I’m worried that [the six] might be used to push for stringent transparency regulations that would affect all religious groups. They are extreme, and extreme cases can lead to bad law.”

Grassley rejects the criticism. “We’re not looking at doctrine. I don’t know much about the words Prosperity gospel,” he says. But he acknowledges that religious-freedom concerns may make an investigation a “little more difficult to defend.” Fellow Senators–“I won’t give their names”–have asked what they should tell the preachers. Says Grassley: “My answer was, ‘Tell them to do what all the other nonprofits do–answer my letter.'” And hope for a different kind of grace.

The original version of this article referred mistakenly to a 2006 letter from the IRS confirming the Joyce Meyer Ministry’s tax-exempt status. While the IRS reviewed the ministry’s activities from 2004 to 2006, it sent its letter of confirmation in October 2007.